1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate in general to computer security and, more particularly, to systems, methods, and program products for providing tamper-resistant executable software code.
2. Background
It is known that software that is compiled into executable code and in an executable image is subject to various types of tampering, including through the insertion of an unauthorized patch code and through snooping of the code to find vulnerabilities. Encryption and decryption, checksums, and other assurance methods are known to protect the distribution of software code, but not necessarily execution of the code. Further, if used during execution encryption and decryption, in particular, can often result in a significant and unacceptable performance reduction under modern software architectures.